Johannesburg - Within 18 months, broken traffic lights will be a thing of the past, says the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA).
The agency is battling with vandalism and old equipment, but promises all traffic lights will be working by June next year.
Darryll Thomas, the JRA’s head of mobility and freight, said non-functioning traffic lights was not a simple problem to solve.
“Our goal is to be able to repair the faults before motorists see them,” he said.
Many of the city’s 2111 traffic lights have old controllers – some as old as 30 years, dating back to when the city still manufacturing its own controllers.
“To get spares can take two or three days,” he said.
Another problem is ageing cables around the traffic lights.
“In former days, PVC and rubber casings were not used around the cables. They used lead and paper so now, when it rains, water seeps into them causing the lights to blow. Sometimes only a few metres of cable are repaired instead of the whole length up to the power supply,” Thomas said.
KEEPING TRACK
The JRA has started a project to identify all its equipment, including cable, through a geographic information system which should be complete by the end of next year.
“With this, we will know exactly where the rogue cables and equipment are,” he said.
Another problem the JRA identified is the damage done by lightning to city’s traffic lights.
“While we knew about the danger of lightning strikes and have installed lightning protection in all traffic lights, we found by accident that the ground around lightning strikes is filled with high electricity potential, which reduces the effectiveness of existing lightning protection,” he said.
The JRA is installing earth mats made of wire mesh around each traffic light.
In 2010, at the time of the World Cup, the JRA installed 200 back-up batteries, which provided seven hours of back-up in case of power cuts at major intersections citywide. They were all stolen.
PROTECTION FROM THIEVES
The JRA will reinstate 50 of these batteries, but will use very heavy casing to protect them.
“We tested one at Wemmer Pan, which is a major problem area for theft. Thieves dug it up, but because we have a security system there, they were caught. In future, we’ll be burying the batteries even deeper,” he said.
Vandalism affects almost every part of the traffic light system, causing higher maintenance costs, said Thomas.
“We used to use aluminium backboards behind the three globes in robots to prevent glare. These have also all been stolen, so we are replacing them with glass fibre, which carries a much higher maintenance cost,” he said.
The solar power project for traffic lights has been put on hold.
“We started a pilot with 20 in the city when load shedding started in 2008 and everyone went into panic mode. But we, as an entity, have made the decision that it is not our responsibility to provide power.”
The Star